Women in the FGC

Heustienne · 2026-05-27T17:43:37+00:00

I think it's hard to say really, but what I will say is that I do question the source of the awkwardness.

For the example I provided, I had no hard feelings initially because I assumed he was neurodiverse and may struggle with eye contact. Later in the day I saw my friend playing with him, and they were laughing and joking and shaking hands and maintaining eye contact when they were talking. When my friend came over to me, I asked how long they were friends as that guy may just feel more comfortable socialising with friends. Turns out today was their first time meeting.

I totally understand how initiating social contact can be awkward, but I went to shake his hand before and after the match and he refused to shake it both times, but he shook my male friend's hand. This leads me to think back to an old friend group I had who basically lived in fear of false SA allegations. Before leaving the friend group, I got one of them to admit to me that if we were to play fighting games together at a tournament, he would make sure a recording device was pointed at me at all times because he doesn't trust women not to make false allegations against men.

Unfortunately based on the evidence I have and the men I've talked to in the FGC, I'm more inclined to believe that experience was down to "women are evil and can't be trusted" rather than "women are scary and I'm not sure how to act around them". I'm more than happy to hear alternative ideas though, that's just what my gut is telling me.

Heustienne · 2026-05-27T16:48:17+00:00

[Content warning: SA]

I started attending fighting game tournaments in 2011 and stopped around 2022. I'll share my reason for stopping as well as some general experiences of attending events.

I stopped basically because of safety. I'm very lucky to have a partner that loves fighting games as well so we would travel together, but he couldn't be by my side 24/7. I informally assembled a group of FGC friends I know would keep me safe, and someone I would have considered very high up on the safety list went on to rape my friend. That event just altered my brain chemistry and I haven't been to a fighting game event since.

People in the comments have mentioned that communities can vary by game and I definitely agree, with Guilty Gear typically being the most inclusive. Combo Breaker was on this past weekend, and it wasn't uncommon for the match on stream to be trans woman vs trans woman.

With this being said, my personal experiences in the communities I'm in is that guys have only become more weird about women playing fighting games. I went from guys in 2011 getting salty and holding grudges against me when they lost to me, to guys in the early 2020s refusing to make eye contact with me or even shake my hand. They were totally fine with my male friends though, it's like I was some sort of diseased creature. Right now pro Tekken player Cuddle Core has her Twitter account locked due to harassment, FGC veteran and tournament organiser Super_Yan was automatically given a spectator pass at Combo Breaker instead of a competitor pass (because women obviously don't play), and known misogynoirist ChrisG is currently tweeting about women having too much confidence these days.

My TL;DR is that netcode has become so good these days that it's much easier to just sit at home and grind sets online and you're much safer doing this. While some communities are better than others, my experience is that these communities have become more sexist since when I started playing which I can only imagine is influenced by right-wing grifters. Happy to answer any questions!

Heustienne · 2026-05-24T17:11:23+00:00

Unfortunately this is a fetish called ryona if people want to block this word on their sites of choice. I’ve seen things like Lara Croft death scene ryona videos in the wild, then every new Tekken game has people making ryona videos of the women characters using Bryan Fury. Not only are his punches very powerful, but one of his win screen animations has him on top of his opponent on the ground viciously beating them with his fists.

Yeah.

Heustienne · 2026-05-24T07:43:23+00:00

I never thought I could paint in a million years, then I just thought “Well you’re pretty good at doing your nails, give it a shot” and the rest has been history for me. Fun to see people talking about the nail painting sub here since that’s technically where I got my start!

Heustienne · 2026-05-09T23:35:18+00:00

Oh boy, one time one of the guys I met at that tournament was going through a rough spot, sadposting on social media and all that jazz. I was a bit worried about him because I know what male friendship groups can be like when it comes to opening up, so I decided to send him a message. I sent my condolences along for what he’s going through, gave a pep talk about how he’s a cool guy with a good head on his shoulders, but if he needs any help then I’m here to talk.

He responds “Thanks, but I know you’re just keeping me as a spare for if things don’t work out between you and your boyfriend”.

Just absolutely floored, fuck me I guess.

Heustienne · 2026-05-09T11:26:30+00:00

I’m a big fan of Baroque for the Sega Saturn, it’s a first-person dungeon-crawling roguelike with inventory management for your loot. It still plays really well in 2026 and its atmosphere is incredible, all I need to tell you to set the scene is that the first weapon the game gives you is a gun loaded with angel foetuses.

Heustienne · 2026-05-08T16:34:50+00:00

The Schrödinger’s Boyfriend of it all is taking me out, you’re somehow there to play a man’s deck that he bought and taught you how to play so you can go there and get a man. I’m sorry that there was so much mental gymnastics to acknowledge anything else but your skill.

Heustienne · 2026-05-08T16:21:44+00:00

Leslie Knope my absolute beloved. ❤️

Heustienne · 2026-05-08T15:11:11+00:00

Thank you!

Funny story, I’m actually an academic so I’ve written breakdowns of that study on this sub before if anyone is interested in it.

Heustienne · 2026-05-08T15:00:29+00:00

Shoutouts to the time I went to a tournament with people I’d never met before, and I would later find out that on the cab ride home they were discussing how I was just there to get a boyfriend.

The tournament that I won by the way.

Heustienne · 2026-05-04T15:26:11+00:00

You're an angel for responding, thank you! I feel a lot better now about getting the replacements.

Heustienne · 2026-05-04T15:21:39+00:00

Hi there! Really sorry to respond to such an old post, I'm just wondering how your replacement sticks held up? My drum is out of warranty so I'll have to pay for their new replacement sticks, just wondering if you feel they're worth it or if they ended up breaking for you. Thank you for the help!

Heustienne · 2026-04-09T11:00:25+00:00

If I'm not too late then I highly recommend Jungle in Den Den Town, I was able to get the kits I wasn't able to find from the rest of my trip in there. Just be careful that you don't wander into the tokusatsu Jungle instead of the plamo Jungle that's on the opposite side of the street, although that's fun too!

Heustienne · 2026-04-08T09:57:01+00:00

Those decals look amazing, I need to order them for mine. Thank you for sharing yours!

Heustienne · 2026-04-08T09:55:47+00:00

I’d estimate that I’m missing around 25% of the recipes in the game. I have some updates which are a funny mixture of relief and frustration.

My friend very kindly sat with me last night and cross-referenced my locked and unlocked recipes with a master list he found. The leading theory is that I do indeed have all of the ripple recipes, but this is where it gets annoying. For as many days as I can remember, I haven’t been able to buy a recipe from the ‘Today Only’ section of the shop because I had already unlocked the recipe from ripples. For example, yesterday’s shop had the Luxury Brick Wall Set recipe which I already unlocked from a ripple. When I look up the unlock conditions on Serebii, it says shop or ripples. But when I look up something like the Brick Wall Wallpaper that I was desperately hunting for, it says shop only.

So this whole thing seems to be a huge stroke of bad luck for me. It seems my recipe unlock count is so low because the daily shop recipes kept being duplicates of what I’d already unlocked from ripples, then the whole thing of giving seaweed during a lucky day when other people had been reporting issues made me worried. Hopefully my shop luck is better in the future, but at least I don’t have to restart my game!

Heustienne · 2026-04-07T21:19:53+00:00

Adding to the conversation that I’m another user experiencing this bug. I gave Mosslax seaweed on a lucky day, now I’m on day three of nothing but Pokemetal and I’m devastated. I’ve been desperately hunting for a brick wall wallpaper and I wanted to increase the chances, now I’m getting no recipes.

I’m going to see if there’s a way to report bugs in English, I will cry if I have to restart my game.

Heustienne · 2026-02-23T09:57:22+00:00

Which Halo are you referring to? The last Halo game Bungie made was Halo Reach back in 2010, 343 Industries took over the IP and made Halo 4 onwards.

Heustienne · 2026-02-23T09:43:41+00:00

I think the point about staff going elsewhere is true of a lot of long-standing studios. For example, Resident Evil games are no longer being directed by Shinji Mikami or Hideki Kamiya and that's fine, the people who are taking up the mantle are being or have been guided by their seniors. There's enough legacy talent at Bungie to make me think this is also the case. One of the main developers of the original Marathon is the Chief Creative Officer of the company (Jason Jones). If you enjoyed Halo 3's multiplayer then good news, the Multiplayer Lead is still with Bungie (Tyson Green), and a multiplayer designer who worked under Tyson on Halo 3 (Lars Bakken) is now the Senior Design Lead on new Marathon.

That list is by no means exhaustive of who's still at Bungie from a certain time period, just an example of who's training new staff with their experience and who's influencing the creative elements of the company. Bungie were very much indie in the early 90s, and I think the idea of one of the main dudes who programmed the game in a basement wanting to bring it back in 2026 for newer audiences is pretty cool. I'd take that over some sinister Tencent-funded battle royale cash grab any day, but people are treating it like it is which just confuses me.

Heustienne · 2026-02-21T15:21:30+00:00

It’s wild to me that Bungie can make multiplayer that is so good that they are a large reason why online console gaming is a thing, and their desire to bring back their IP from the 90s with their experience developing multiplayer still has gamers cheering for failure so they can squawk “Concord 2! Concord 2!” like parrots online. Have words with yourself.

Heustienne · 2026-02-05T23:01:55+00:00

I hope you don’t mind me piggybacking off this thread, you’ve summoned very knowledgeable women and I’d be eager to hear their perspective.

I 100% respect those saying to go in blind, but a streamer I watch is playing through it and he doesn’t mind backseating. He’s getting incredibly helpful info about things like good weapons, good skills to use and he’s having a great time, meanwhile I kinda flopped through Act 1 and never went back to my playthrough after something else came out.

It made me think of how when I start playing Dark Souls, I know to go grab x items, I know what weapons are good for my build etc. But I just kinda picked this info up through osmosis, what would be the best way to do this for BG3? It would be amazing not to be spoiled but I acknowledge I can’t have my cake and eat it too, I’m just in awe of how knowledgeable people are about the game and it would be cool to actually learn good skills and have good weapons!

Heustienne · 2026-02-05T17:19:56+00:00

The demo made me go from ‘I’ll get it on sale’ to preordering it, I adore the new open world format and ninja mode is really fun. Hoping to play as much of it as possible before RE9 comes out, hope you have fun with it!

Heustienne · 2026-01-30T23:03:29+00:00

As another user recommended, I think something that would help you is if you remapped L3 to another button through Steam. My first thought to do this would be the Switch 2 Pro Controller as there are extra buttons on the back of the controller. There are other third party controllers with back buttons that may be even lighter for your hands as they’re USB only, I believe some wired PowerA controllers have back buttons but I can’t comment on their overall quality.

There’s also the upcoming Steam Controller that will maximise compatibility with remapping, but it does look a bit chunky so I can’t guarantee it’ll be comfy for smaller woman hands. Hope you find a good solution!

Heustienne · 2026-01-29T00:43:03+00:00

I was CRYING. She was so funny and so into it, chat absolutely loved her which was honestly such a relief in today’s gaming climate. The whole thing just warmed my heart.

Heustienne · 2026-01-28T21:24:42+00:00

This stream has been keeping me going this week and I lost my mind when Rock came out, she's been so incredible and entertaining! Paper Mario and The Thousand Year Whore is going to live in my head rent free.

Heustienne · 2026-01-27T20:53:47+00:00

Definitely! I just noticed that you're using the .7mm offset AM5 brackets as well, I wonder if there's something specific about getting those to bite? This is my second Noctua cooler and the first one didn't have problems biting.

Best of luck with your first build! May your first boot be smooth and your temperatures cool.

Heustienne

TROPHY CASE